I read the first Harry Potter book to James, and he loved it.  We watched the movie after we read it, and Jose and I were blown away by how much he remembered from the book.  Now we’re reading the second book and he’s just as into that one.  At one point he told me he didn’t want to be a muggle.  Later, he told me he was half wizard.  Today he was going around talking about doing magical things.  Here is a part of our conversation:

James: I’m magical (he’d just pulled out a large clump of caramel corn instead of a little piece).
Me: I thought you were only half wizard.
James: No, I’m a wizard.  You’re going to have to buy me a wand some day.

One of the things I love about being a mother is being a witness to all these fabulous bouts of imagination.

This week has had “insane” written all over it!  We’ve had a whole lot going on, and the craziness hasn’t quite ended yet.  I can hardly believe that Christmas is only a  week away.  I don’t even have a tree yet that’s how busy we’ve been.

It started with the first of Julia’s gymnastics shows on Tuesday.  She had to be at the gym by 5:00, so James and I dropped her off and then did some Christmas shopping.  We found a present for James to give Julia that he’s very happy about.

On Wednesday, the kids had their concert at school.  It was called “Flakes” and they did a great job.  Julia’s class performed one song and then she joined us for the rest of the show.  James and the other grades 1-5 students went on and it was a mix between the musical theatre group doing speaking parts and the rest of the kids singing.  Both James and Julia performed well singing and doing the actions.  Even I had a part in it.  The staff always does a number and this year was no different.  This year, we donned some sequins and did a sort of chorus line to the title song.  It got a lot of laughs and was really fun.

Thursday was Julia’s second night of the gymnastics show and this time, we all went and watched her.  By “all” I mean Jose and James and I of course, but also my mum, Ross and Jose’s dad.  Julia did so well.  Compared to even June when she was doing her ballet viewing day when she was shy and barely danced, she absolutely sparkled during her rhythmic routine.  She smiled the whole way through instead of turtling like she usually does when we watch her.  In fact, she was so busy grinning at us she missed a couple of moves, but she got right back into it and did a wonderful job.

Friday, Julia and I drove up to Cochrane.  My cousin Julia got us tickets for the Nutcracker.  James and Jose stayed home to attend the dress rehearsal for the church Christmas play.  He was quite excited for the hot dog lunch that came after it and enjoyed spending the day one-on-one with Papa.  Julia and I joined Claire, Catherine and Julia D. for the ballet this afternoon.  Julia loved it.  She alternated between sitting on my lap and Claire’s and she asked questions through the whole thing.  My favourite was when she asked why the male dancers in the Arabic piece didn’t have any pants on (they were basically wearing tighty whities and nothing else).  When asked, Julia said her favourite part was all of it.  After the ballet, we went to Earl’s for supper where Julia D. gave us all a nutcracker Christmas ornament to commemorate the occasion.  On the way home, Julia fell asleep before we even left the city limits and now she’s snoozing away in her bed.

Tomorrow is the Christmas play at church. James will be an Israelite and Julia will be an angel.  I’m going to get a Christmas tree come hell or high water, and get some Christmas decorations going and maybe even finish up my Christmas shopping.  My friend is coming over for the Survivor finale as well tomorrow evening, so it’s another busy day.  Monday will be James’ Christmas recital for piano (just a small event with us in our basement), but after that it should calm down a bit.  Well, as calm as the week before Christmas ever is!

After school yesterday, James very proudly showed me his first loose tooth!  I couldn’t believe it.  He told me that at lunch time, he bit into his peanut butter sandwich and it made his tooth wiggly.  Of course, he wiggled it all afternoon and was very excited: “I’ve always wanted a loose tooth!”

At supper, we heard a loud exclamation.  James bit into a piece of sausage and found something hard in it when he tried to chew.  It was his tooth!  He pulled the tooth out of the sausage and posed for some “toothless wonder” pictures.

At bedtime of course, the tooth was placed under James’ pillow in a Bubble Tape container (we don’t have a fancy Tooth Fairy pillow!).  In the morning, he was over the moon to find a shiny new loonie from the Toothy Fairy and has been telling anyone who will listen ever since all about it.  In fact, it was the first thing he said to his teacher at school!

It was amazing how fast the whole process went: loose at lunch time, gone by supper!  I didn’t think James would start losing teeth for awhile yet since he was 15 months old before he got his first tooth.  Now to get used to seeing the gap in the bottom row of his teeth!

Ok, so I actually wrote this a week ago (I think it was Friday the 11th) but WordPress was being dumb and wouldn’t post it.  So I copied it into a Word document to save for later and forgot all about it until I saw the poor, lonely, sad little post sitting there patiently waiting to be published.  So I’m not going to change anything, I’ll just post it as is, and remember that I was writing it on Nov. 11th.

Last night we had a glow stick party!  The kids got glow sticks in a loot bag from a birthday party Thursday night, and wanted to crack them open immediately.  However, it was bedtime, and I knew that they’d only enjoy them for a couple of minutes before going to bed thereby wasting them.  So I suggested a glow stick party the following evening and they were all over that like white on rice.  All day yesterday they kept asking whether it was evening yet, and when could we have the party.  Finally, suppertime came and went and it was time.  Jose put his iPod on the dock, turned on some good dancing tunes, and we cracked the glow sticks and shut the lights off.  The kids danced like mad and Julia showed us some of her rhythmic gymnastics moves.  I have to say, they both have great rhythm, and some wild moves.  James in particular has wild moves   We would have taken a video, but it was dark.  James and Julia had a wonderful time, and after all that dancing, went to sleep very quickly.

In other news, James followed in Julia’s footsteps this week and threw up in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday.  Jose stayed home with him, and like Julia, he did fine with no more puking.  Unfortunately, also like Julia, he threw up the following night and was fine again in the morning.  James was disappointed that he missed the Remembrance Day assembly on Wednesday, but he wasn’t in any shape to go.  Thursday was a holiday for the kids and me at least, so we could take it easy.  The only thing we did during the day was go to Toys R Us to get a gift for the birthday party that evening and for the kids to spend the $5 Mama Loly gave them on Monday when she came to see us.  James had a nap that afternoon and was fine for the party, but was not his usual self – more withdrawn and quiet.  He had a good time though.  So did Julia and who wouldn’t?  It was a swimming party with a water slide!

As I mentioned, Jose’s mum came to see us this week.  She’s leaving on holiday and wanted to see us before she left.  The kids and I met up with her after school at Old Navy and by the time I got there, she already had an armful of clothes for the kids to pick from.  They each picked two long-sleeved t-shirts and then we wandered around looking at jackets and such because she wanted to buy one for each of the kids.  Julia got a puffy vest and James got a cool grey tiger hoodie.

The kids love them and haven’t stopped wearing them all week.  James was particularly excited to show off his new clothes at school, and apparently they were met with approval by his friends (“They said, ‘Aw sweet!’”).  The spoiling didn’t end there.  Mama Loly took us to Boston Pizza for supper and gave each kid “five bucks” as Julia kept saying when she left the following morning.  Most importantly though, the kids just liked having her around and telling her things and showing things to her.

We survived Halloween!  Actually it was lots of fun.  The kids and I wore our costumes for the day at school.  A whole day is a long time to spend in a costume, but ours were all pretty comfortable this year.  I was a blue crayon at school this year.  I even helped sew my costume!  There were 5 of us altogether who were crayons.  It was pretty awesome.

The evening of course brought trick-or-treating.  I took the kids out while Jose stayed behind to hand out candy.  This is our usual routine but this year, Sammy joined the kids and I for the trick-or-treating.  He was really good and didn’t try to swipe his sparkly devil horns off too often.  It was chilly (in fact it had tried snowing earlier in the day), but we bundled up and took off.  First, we did the inner ring of our court, then went back in for a warm-up break.  Julia was the least warmly dressed, but she said she was warm enough.  James and I not so much.  While we added some layers, Julia made a trip to the bathroom.  Back out and we started around the outer ring of the court.  We did about 8 more houses and then Julia started doing The Clutch.  I was irritated because of course she was supposed to go at home.  Apparently she “tried” but didn’t have to go at the time.  Back we went and decided it was getting late and we should check out the loot before bed.  James was the one who was most fine with this decision.  Julia was mad but when she came out of the bathroom and saw James with his treats, not another word was mentioned.  The kids enjoyed sorting through their candy and they each had one and then it was off to bed.

Julia had trouble falling asleep and the next day woke up with a headache.  I didn’t have Tylenol, but I phoned my friend and she brought some to school.  I checked in on Julia partway through the morning, and she said her headache was better but her teachers told me she seemed off.  “Glassy-eyed” was how they described her.  I figured she’d nap at the day home, but when I picked her up for gymnastics I was informed that no such thing happened.  Our day home provider also said she was “glassy-eyed” and her eyes and nose had started running.  I took her to gymnastics and on the way home she was getting really croaky.  She fell asleep before we got home and kind of just deteriorated from there.  She was feverish and her throat hurt and when she coughed it really hurt.  Jose gave her a very steamy bath, and I went to get some Tylenol and cough medicine.  At about 12:45am, Jose and I were awakened by vomiting.  Jose had the honour of cleaning that up while I went downstairs to book a sub and make sub plans.

Yesterday, Julia and I stayed home (after I went into the school to set things up for the sub), and she slept most of the morning away and watched TV for the afternoon.  I had to keep checking her temperature and giving her Tylenol and cough medicine.  She seemed well enough to go to James’ gymnastics class but she just sat there very quietly and snuggled up to me for a lot of it.  Her temperature started to rise again towards the end and it was bath and bed when we got home.  It was too bad I had to take her, but I didn’t have much choice.  Jose was going to a hockey game, and I hadn’t been to one of James’ classes yet because of hand bells.  James did really well.  It’s so cool to see the skills he’s learning and how far he’s come since he started.  He’s more disciplined now too and very talented.  Having no fear helps I think.

Last night was better for Julia but we were woken once again, this time at 5:30 or so, by her puking again.  Once again we stripped her bed and I made sub plans.  She seems much better today though.  She slept until almost 10:00, and has been hungry and more alert.  She’s fading now though, so when her Dora episode is over she’s going to have a nap.

In the meantime, I’m going to see if we have some chicken noodle soup to feed her.  Here’s hoping for a full recovery today!

The kids are very excited about Halloween tomorrow.  I have to admit, I’m quite excited too.  We’ve already been to our annual Halloween party, and today we decorated the house and carved pumpkins.  One thing at a time though!

Halloween Party:
Our 6th annual Halloween party was held at Jess and Ryan’s house this year.  The theme was “Classic Halloween” inspired by Ada and James who were dressing up as an owl and a skeleton respectively.  I already have a costume for school (a crayon!!) so I just pulled bits and pieces from our growing Halloween costume collection and made myself into a pink-haired witch.  Pretty simple, really, so I had some fun with my makeup.  Wearing glasses on top spoiled the effect unfortunately, but I’ve already had to cancel two eye appointments due to a busy schedule, so until I can get in, I’m stuck being a four-eyes.  Julia was my kitty sidekick and Jose was the Master Skeleton. We had a fun evening with the kids roaring around in the basement, and the adults having some conversation time upstairs.  There was some very creative Halloween-themed food that tasted much better than it looked!

Julia’s Costume:
Julia’s costume for this year has caused all sorts of grief.  We found a cute bumblebee princess costume, and she wanted to be that, but I didn’t want to pay $35 or $45 or $50 (those were the three prices I found throughout the city!).  I figured it would be easy enough to put one together, and it was until it came time to find a yellow shirt.  Do you think ANYONE carries yellow shirts right now??  No!!  I tried Wal-Mart, Old Navy, Superstore and even Classique Dance Wear for a yellow bodysuit.  Nada.  Michaels had a whole bunch of yellow t-shirts, but guess which was the only size they were out of.  If you guessed “Julia’s size” you’d be correct.  They had every other colour under the sun in every size.  Youth small yellow?  Nope.  Once we got home, I set Jose to the task of figuring her out while I got ready to go (witch makeup takes a long time!).  First she wanted to be a bat and use James’ Batman mask and cape.  I thought Jose could maybe make her some wings out of the cape, but then they figured out how to make a tail out of the cape instead, and we were off to the races.  We had some fun with her makeup too.  We ventured out once more today to Wal-Mart to find a proper kitty tail and ears.  Do you think they have any kitty tails in sight?  Nope.  How about some plain black ears?  Nope.  Final, final verdict: Julia is going as a rock star kitty with pink glittery ears, little cuff things, a choke collar, and a pink tutu along with her black and pink “Girls Rock” shirt and black leggings.  I thought she could just wear the inside-out Batman suit she wore last night, but she got it in her head that she didn’t want to, and good luck convincing her otherwise!  She saw her rocker shirt hanging on the drying rack, and made her stand.  Go for it, I figure.  Halloween is about letting your creative side through, and if that’s what she’s happy wearing, then all the power to her.  Plus she has the satisfaction of creating her costume herself.

Decorating:
Today the kids finally got in gear and got their play room cleaned up so that we could decorate the house.  I’d been holding out until it was done, and finally the threat of having no decorations whatsoever was the catalyst they needed.  The play room was tidied, and out came the pumpkin gear.  To decorate the pumpkin she picked out, Julia opted to use the plastic face pieces we got last year to create her masterpiece, but James wanted to do the full-on carving.  He did a lot of the scooping out, and designed his own face.  He drew it on the pumpkin, and carved most of it himself except for around the teeth.  He did a great job!  I just realized though that I didn’t get a picture of him with it, so I will have to do that tomorrow.  I think the house looks good.  The kids were totally stoked to put stuff up, and would have gone entirely crazy, but I managed to retain some control so it doesn’t look like Halloween threw up in our home.

As you can see, it was a busy weekend.  And I didn’t even mention our trip to the corn maze, or our church’s 125th anniversary!

Corn Maze:
This year we managed to just squeak the corn maze in.  We tried to go last weekend but it was a Sunday and it was closed.  Yesterday was the last day of it being open, so it was that or nothing.  And considering James and Julia talk about it all year long, “nothing” was not an option.  The petting zoo was where the kids wanted to start this year, so we collected an ice cream cone filled with grain for each kid and visited all of the farm creatures.  I’m happy to say that we broke our bird curse this year.  No child was pecked (or “plucked” as James keeps saying) by farm fowl.  Julia got it from a turkey last year, and James from a chicken the year before.  I was sure it was going to happen again the way they were crowding up against the fence with a dozen hungry birds on the other side.  Gah!  I just try not to shudder or get too close.  I’ll pet the cows, horses, donkeys, pigs, etc. but keep me away from the birds!

Once we could tear the kids away from the animals, we headed for the maze.  The maze was 9 acres this year – 2 acres bigger than usual.  We wandered around for about an hour and a half or so before finally emerging… out the beginning.  We have a plan: choose a direction and stick to it.  This year Julia chose left and what you’re supposed to do is turn left whenever possible.  If you come to a dead end, come out of it and go left.  Somehow we went wrong though and the plan did not work.  I think we may have skipped a couple of turns or something.  Whatever our failure was, we had fun doing it and we went back into the maze from the end so the kids could go up the tower.  Check out the Lethbridge Corn Maze here.

125th Anniversary:
We had a pretty neat service today to celebrate our parish turning 125 years old.  It was a church before Alberta was a province!  We also celebrated St. Cyprian’s and St. Mary’s, churches that have been amalgamated into St. Augustine’s.  The hand bell choir played, so I was there quite early.  Once again, we played well.  James was thrilled because he got to wear a red necklace during the Children’s Focus while Chris Roth was talking about the church’s birthday.  The bishop was there of course, along with other retired clergy.  It was quite the procession, let me tell you!  And because we’re Anglicans, everyone in the procession had their special place.  To be honest, I quite like the traditions of the Anglican church.  The music was great, and it’s just neat to be part of a thriving community with a great history.

In Conclusion:
To end on a funny note, I’d been wracking my brains trying to remember something funny that Julia said in the car a little while ago.  It finally came to me when she repeated it.  The first time it happened something like this:

Julia: When we go swimming, I want to wear my zucchini.
Me (even though I heard her – I just wanted to hear it again): Pardon me?
Julia: When we go swimming I want to wear my zucchini.
Me (just barely holding in the laughter): Do you mean your bikini?
Julia: Yeah.
She does love her bikini that girl!

Julia (at church): This is God’s house.
Jose: Yep.
Julia: Where does he sleep?

James’ Teacher: Who knows what birds do in the fall?
James: They vibrate.

A fabulous weekend of family and feasting is drawing to a close, and I for one am sad to see it go.

Friday:
Claire, Paul and Scamp arrived.  They were originally scheduled to go to Regina to see my grandparents, but my grandma wasn’t well so they joined us instead.  Claire and Paul arrived at noon so that they could pick James and Julia up from the school.  Julia was at school because the day home had a small fire the day before.  Luckily, Julia wasn’t there because she was sick.  I suppose everything happens for a reason!  She just hung out with my class and was a very good little girlie.  Anyway, Claire and Paul took the kids to McDonald’s for lunch and then home.  This gave me an opportunity to get stuff done at school, and it was extremely helpful.

Usually when Claire arrives at my house we start cooking almost immediately.  Friday was no different.  Claire and I made a stir fry for supper.  Actually, she did most of it and I was her assistant.  It was delicious regardless.  After supper we had a jam session in the basement with Claire leading the way on the piano, Paul on drums and me singing.  When Jose got home (he’d been working in Calgary), we cranked the tunes on the various iPods and had an impromptu dance party.  The kids joined us at first, but went to bed after a bit.  Amazingly, they went to sleep despite all the noise we were making.  After the dance party we played a board game called Quelf for awhile, then switched to a game my sister, Catherine, made up years ago called What Would You Do If…?  We laughed a lot, had some wobbly-pops and generally had a grand time.  With all the the hilarity, we decided that an appropriate end to the night would be to watch “Super Troopers” – a movie that gets me laughing every time.  Apparently though, Claire and I were not up to the challenge and conked out in front of the TV.  She went first.

Saturday:
Saturday started off with pancakes.  I think that’s a great way to start a Saturday.  We were all rather slow moving due to a late night the night before.  We didn’t really accomplish a whole heck of a lot.  We read, napped, visited, and eventually Claire and I made our way to Superstore where we always seem to end up when she visits.  I wanted some new jeans, and we needed some ingredients for Paul to make fajitas.  I came away with 3 new shirts and the jeans. The jeans were Claire’s birthday present to me.

Supper was great.  Paul has worked in a few different restaurants and really looks like he knows what he’s doing!  And when we tasted the food, we knew it was true.  I do love a good fajita.  Another quite healthy meal because we put lots of veggies in (peppers, fresh tomatoes, onions, lettuce) and rolled them in whole wheat tortillas.

Saturday night was a lot more mellow than Friday.  We watched “Source Code” and it was a lot better than I was expecting.

Sunday:
Sunday started early for me.  I had to be at church by 9:00 for a hand bell practice.  We were playing in church that day and always do a run-through before the service.  We played quite well I thought.  I made all my page turns that I’d been having trouble with and only played one wrong note.

After church, we went for some Vietnamese food because Claire was craving salad rolls.  I tried not to overdo it because I knew we had a feast coming.  Beside the restaurant is a big Halloween store, and we wandered through there for awhile.  They had some good costumes, and it’s fun to go through and get ideas.  Julia was the only one who got anything: some bumblebee wings and a tiara.  She tried on some items too:

Thanks to Paul for the image

After Halloween shopping it was time to get the turkey in the oven.  Claire and I also prepared the potatoes and carrots and stuffing so that all we had to do at suppertime was turn on burners.  The rest of the afternoon we just waited for people who were arriving from out of town and relaxed.  Chico arrived followed soon after by my mum and Ross with Antonio close on their heels.  I got some more birthday presents too: books and a bookmark and a set of cool kitchen sticky notes from my mum.  Antonio came with a gift card from Chapters from him and a La Senza gift from Sammy to make up for his little “obsession.”  He also brought “The Lion King” Blu-Ray from Natalia, and a beautiful red purse from Mama Loly.

We had our Thanksgiving meal, and it was fantastic.  It included roast turkey, mashed potatoes with green onions and garlic, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, steamed carrots and Killer Coleslaw.  I enjoyed the meal thoroughly.  My mum brought both pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin pie.  I had some cheesecake for dessert, and then some pie later when we were playing Uno.  (I’m pleased to say I won!).

Terrific Turkey

Monday:
We got a chance to sleep in today which was lovely.  Jose went to pick up some Timmy’s and the whole lot of us sat around eating, drinking our coffees and chatting.  It was probably an hour and a half or so until we broke for things like showers.  Antonio had to get going and then my mum and I went to Safeway for some puff pastry so Claire could make us some turkey casserole.  More good food!  Shortly after our late lunch, Claire and Paul headed out and then Mum and Ross did too not much long after.

Jose and I took the kids and the dog for a bike/scooter ride/walk to enjoy the beautiful day.  Then I took James and Julia to Wal-Mart to get James his prize.  We had made a deal that if he read to everyone who came to our house this weekend he could pick out a new Lego set.  He did it!  Plus he also read his home reading book to us tonight.  He’s really caught on to reading and is really enjoying it.  That makes me so happy.  And he reads so well, with expression and everything!

And now we’re just a little ways away from bed and the very end of our long weekend.  I sure enjoyed it, and can’t wait until the next family gathering.

September was a jam-packed month full of new things and returning to regular routines.  It’s not easy getting up early, but boy do we appreciate our Saturdays!

Jen: Going to Zumba and Body Jam classes – two cardio dance classes at the gym as well as hand bells each week.  I decided not to play volleyball this year so that I could go to Zumba.  I played for 5 years, and decided that it’s time for a change.  I’m on the sub list so I may play if they’re short on players.  I also started a blog about my weight loss journey.  You can visit it here.

Jose: Also hitting the gym.  We’re feeling pretty motivated to get fit this fall.  Working away as usual.  Just got a new car to replace the Boom-Boom Car (AKA Yaris).  The lease was up, and although we’d originally thought to buy it out it turns out it wasn’t really worth it.  Nowadays you’ll see a sporty new red Hyundai Veloster parked out front of our house.

James: Grade One was off to a rocky start but I think he’s getting it sorted out.  His reading skills are growing so fast and we’re so proud of him.  Last night he wanted to read “The Big Brag” by Dr. Seuss.  Words like “important” and “mighty” were a breeze and words like “ridiculous” and “terribly” needed only a little bit of prompting.  What’s really exciting is that he’s wanting to read to us now.  Before it was a bit of a struggle to get him to do it. Gymnastics and swimming have both started and he’s loving both.  Piano was supposed to start this week, but James had some sort of stomach bug yesterday.

Julia: Doing very well in preschool.  She has come out of her shell a lot more and is participating in class and seems very happy.  She started rhythmic gymnastics and we’re thrilled that she’s in a class of only 3 kids.  Lots of one-on-one attention.  She’s doing swimming too and it’s her first time in the pool without a parent.  She knows all of her letters and her numbers to 10.  She loves to write things out and ask people to read them for her.  She also loves to type, and she’s already begging to send text messages to people.  We’re in so much trouble.

I think that’s about it for now.  We’re happy and healthy and busier than ever.